Woolwich Suspect Adebolajo Was Arrested ‘Waiting For Boat to Somalia’

A planned trip to Somalia by the Woolwich murder suspect Michael Adebolajo was cut short by a Kenyan police informer just before he reached the country, police sources in Kenya said.

Adebolajo, who was escorted on the 2010 trip to a remote island waypoint in northern Kenya by a man now accused of planning two other attacks in Kenya, had with him four minors, described by local law enforcers as schoolchildren.

Before the case was closed in the Kenyan courts Adebolajo was deported to the UK, but police where he was arrested are unequivocal about the intentions of the group. “They were going to Somalia,” one said.

Adebolajo told police that he had spent a couple of days in the Kenyan city of Mombasa where he met Swaleh Abdulmajid; he asked Abdulmajid to show him Lamu, said an officer.

Abdulmajid, who was born in Lamu, was later charged with preparation to commit a felony after allegedly planning an attack on the central police station in Mombasa.

While witnesses said the two men seemed not to know each other very well, Adebolajo and Abdulmajid – as the only two adults in the group supposedly heading for Somalia – are said to have spent a number of nights together in cells.

Abdulmajid is the son-in-law of the radical Muslim cleric Aboud Rogo, who was killed by unknown gunmen last year.

Adebolajo and the five others arrived by bus from Mombasa at the mainland Lamu jetty on the evening of Saturday 20 November 2010.

The pot-holed, rocky and corrugated road from Mombasa links the Coast Province to the North Eastern District, which borders Somalia. A police officer at one roadblock said that, each year, he arrested four or five al-Shabaab suspects, but that bus passengers usually avoided scrutiny.

The Lamu archipelago has been favoured for its remoteness by celebrities, including Sienna Miller and Jude Law. But its inaccessibility has proved useful also to those operating outside the law.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, an al-Qaida leader in east Africa, who was killed in a shootout with police in 2011, lived on Pate island where Adebolajo was arrested while allegedly planning an attack on a Mombasa hotel, which killed 15 people.

In 2011 unknown gunmen kidnapped a disabled French woman, Marie Dedieu, who later died. Southern Somalia, which still provides home-turf for the al-Qaida affiliated militants al-Shabaab, is only 40 miles north from Pate Island.

Adebolajo and his companions, on their 2010 trip, found a speedboat to drive them north for an hour at full throttle and into a narrow channel lined with mangroves to reach the small town of Faza on Pate island.

The men arrived at the Faza guesthouse at about 8pm; they left without paying before dawn.

“Nobody saw them,” said Ahmed Hassan, 44, whose family owns the guesthouse, which is located beneath the government’s registration office for people visiting the island.

The pair then took a boat from Faza to Kizingitini, just five minutes away but one step closer to Somalia. Kizingitini’s 200-metre stone jetty is a common launching point for Somalia, locals say.

It was here that Adebolajo was arrested on the morning of 21 November while waiting for a speedboat from Somalia to take him to “the other side”, as a police officer said.

Police in Lamu operate an informal intelligence network that includes fishermen and boat captains. It was one of these “friends” that informed police of the suspicious visitors, which led to their arrest.

Adebolajo claimed he just wanted to visit the island, and said he was in Lamu for the Islamic festival Mawlid. A witness described him as cooperative during the arrest.

Adebolajo was found to be the only one with a significant amount of money, having about 40,000 Kenyan shillings (£300) in cash. None of his companions carried bags, and they had only the clothes they were wearing, a witness said.

Adebolajo appeared in court with the others on 24 November, but the case was adjourned to give the prosecution time to gather evidence.

Ahmed Hassan, a brother of the guesthouse owner who stood in the dock next to Adebolajo for the first hearing, noted with surprise at the second hearing that “the foreigner” had gone.

Adebolajo’s arrest in Kenya has raised questions about cooperation between Kenyan and British security agencies. All six defendants appeared in court on 24 November, along with the owners of the guesthouse where they had lodged.

The case was adjourned to give the prosecution time to gather evidence, but Adebolajo left the country on 26 November, according to immigration sources, before the second hearing took place. It is not yet known what he did on the intervening day.

Hussein Khaled, executive director of Muslims for Human Rights in Kenya, believes that MI5 was instrumental in expediting Adebolajo. He said that security forces should have exercised extreme caution. “Anybody found like that on the border of Kenya and Somalia is a potential terrorist,” Khaled said. “The speed with which they [gave] the green light to let this guy go is strange.”

Source: The Guardian